Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (36 page)
Read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Online
Authors: Isabel Wilkerson
“Because even if I should speak”
:
Baldwin,
Fire Next Time,
pp. 53, 54.
“If the majority knew of the root”
:
Albert Einstein, message to the National Urban League, September 16, 1946. Cited by Jerome and Taylor in
Einstein on Race and Racism,
p. 146. The National Urban League is a civil rights organization that was founded in 1911 and is devoted to the social and economic well-being of African-Americans.
recently enacted Nuremberg Laws
:
Wayne Morrison,
Criminology, Civilisation and the New World Order
(New York: Routledge, Cavendish, 2006), p. 80.
T
OXINS IN THE
P
ERMAFROST AND
H
EAT
R
ISING
A
LL
A
ROUND
Chapter One: The Afterlife of Pathogens
It was the pathogen anthrax
:
Alexey Eremenko, “Heat Wave Sparks Anthrax Outbreak in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Area,” NBC News, July 27, 2016,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/heat-wave-sparks-anthrax-outbreak-russia-s-yamalo-nenets-area-n617716
; “First Anthrax Outbreak Since 1941: 9 Hospitalised, with Two Feared to Have Disease,”
Siberian Times,
July 26, 2016,
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0686-first-anthrax-outbreak-since-1941-9-hospitalised-with-two-feared-to-have-disease/
.
He would boast of grabbing women
:
Jessica Taylor, “ ‘You Can Do Anything’: In 2005 Tape, Trump Brags About Groping, Kissing Women,” National Public Radio, October 7, 2016. The story was preceded by an editor’s note: “This post contains language that is crude and explicit and that many will find offensive.” Tim Hains, “Parental Advisory for Trump’s Angry Tweet Today,”
Real Clear Politics,
October 2, 2019,
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/02/jake_tapper_issues_parental_advisory_on_cnn_im_going_to_be_quoting_the_president.html
. Also Al Tompkins, “As Profanity Laced Video Leaks, Outlets Grapple with Trump’s Language,”
Poynter,
October 7, 2016,
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2016/as-profanity-laced-video-leaks-outlets-grapple-with-trumps-language/
.
“so transparently unqualified”
:
Hari Kunzru, “
Hillbilly Elegy
by J. D. Vance Review—Does This Memoir Really Explain Trump’s Victory?”
Guardian,
December 7, 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/07/hillbilly-elegy-by-jd-vance-review
.
Only weeks before, the billionaire
:
During a campaign rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, on January 23, 2016, Trump said, “They say I have the most loyal people—did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters….It’s like incredible.” Katie Reilly, “Donald Trump Says He ‘Could Shoot Somebody’ and Not Lose Voters,”
Time,
January 23, 2016,
https://time.com/4191598/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-not-lose-voters/
.
by 2042, for the first time
:
Conor Dougherty, “Whites to Lose Majority Status in U.S. by 2042,”
Wall Street Journal,
August 14, 2008,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121867492705539109
; Ed Pilkington, “US Set for Dramatic Change as White America Becomes Minority by 2042,”
Guardian,
August 14, 2008,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/population.race
.
“give in to all the minorities”
:
Melanie Burney, “Bordentown Police Chief Called President Trump ‘The Last Hope For White People,’ a South Jersey Officer Testifies,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
September 23, 2019,
https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey/frank-nucera-hate-crime-trial-bordentown-police-chief-trump-isis-20190923.html
.
the Electoral College, an American
:
The Electoral College is a holdover from the era of the country’s founding, when fully 18 percent, or roughly one in six people, were enslaved, concentrated in the southern states, and not permitted to vote. It is a vestige of an eighteenth-century constitutional concession that allowed the southern states to count enslaved people as three-fifths of a free person both for their representation in Congress and for the number of electoral votes cast for president. It allowed slave states to exert more influence than they might have otherwise, and today it allows conservative, rural, and less populous states to have more influence than they otherwise might have without it. Akhil Reed Amar, “The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists,”
Time,
November 6, 2016,
https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
.
there had been only five elections
:
The presidential elections decided by the Electoral College were: Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden in 1876; Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland in 1888; George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000; Donald J. Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Tara Law, “These Presidents Won the Electoral College—but Not the Popular Vote,”
Time,
May 15, 2019,
https://time.com/5579161/presidents-elected-electoral-college/
. In 1824, John Quincy Adams was declared the winner over Andrew Jackson by a vote in the House of Representatives after a four-way race in which no candidate won a majority of either the popular vote or the Electoral College vote. “The Election of 1824: John Quincy Adams,” Bill of Rights Institute, n.d.,
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/educate/educator-resources/lessons-plans/presidents-constitution/the-election-of-1824/
.
“fully functional democracy”
:
Matt Kisner, the Democratic Party chair in Richland County, South Carolina, said that in a “fully functional democracy,” impeachment would obviously be the right move, but in today’s United States, it would sadly be counterproductive: “It will rile up his base, it will validate all of their concerns that everyone is somehow out to get him, and that will just make it more complicated for us to beat him at the ballot box, which is where we really have to win.” Daniel Dale, “Democratic Leaders Remain Reluctant to Impeach Trump,”
Star
(Toronto), April 23, 2019,
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2019/04/23/democratic-leaders-remain-reluctant-to-impeach-trump.html
.
It was only the third such impeachment trial
:
The two previous U.S. presidents who were impeached in office were Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, under pressure from fellow Republicans, in August 1974 as the House of Representatives prepared to impeach him.
More than three hundred days had passed
:
Chris Cillizza, “The Last ‘Daily’ White House Press Briefing Was 170 Days Ago,” CNN, August 28, 2019,
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/28/politics/trump-white-house-daily-press-briefing/index.html
. By the time the presidential impeachment trial ended on February 5, 2020, it had been 329 days since the last press briefing at the White House, held on March 11, 2019.
Then the worst pandemic
:
Dan Diamond, “Trump’s Mismanagement Helped Fuel Coronavirus Crisis,”
Politico,
March 7, 2020,
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465
; Michael D. Shear et al., “The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19,”
New York Times,
March 28, 2020,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html
; David Frum, “This Is Trump’s Fault: The President Is Failing, and Americans Are Paying for His Failures,”
Atlantic,
April 7, 2020.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/americans-are-paying-the-price-for-trumps-failures/609532/
.
one who had never served
:
“In the office’s storied 227-year existence—from George Washington to Barack Obama—there has never been a president who has entirely lacked both political and military service. Donald Trump has broken this barrier.” Zachary Crockett, “Donald Trump Is the Only US President Ever with No Political or Military Experience,”
Vox,
January 23, 2017,
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/11/13587532/donald-trump-no-experience
.
“unholy mess”
:
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes,
Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign
(New York: Crown, 2017), p. 13. The two Washington journalists use the phrase “unholy mess” to sum up the views of campaign insiders Lissa Muscatine, Clinton’s longtime speechwriter, and Jon Favreau, former wunderkind speech writer for President Barack Obama. See also Joshua Zeitz, “Why Do They Hate Her?,”
Politico,
June 3, 2017,
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/03/why-do-they-hate-her-215220
.
“An apparent mistake”
:
NBC News reported that Vladimir Bogdanov, a biology professor with the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview for RBC news that “Yamal authorities stopped vaccinating reindeer 10 years ago because there had been no outbreaks for more than half-a-century—an apparent mistake.” Alexey Eremenko, “Heat Wave Sparks Anthrax Outbreak in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Area,” NBC News, July 27, 2016,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/heat-wave-sparks-anthrax-outbreak-russia-s-yamalo-nenets-area-n617716
.
The military had to weigh
:
Marc Bennetts, “Russian Troops Destroy Hundreds of Reindeer Killed by Anthrax,”
Times
(London), August 9, 2016,
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-troops-destroy-hundreds-of-reindeer-killed-by-anthrax-k5n3gf0cp
.
They would have to incinerate them
:
“Tundra Ablaze as Reindeer Carcasses Infected with Deadly Anthrax Are Incinerated,”
Siberian Times,
August 5, 2016,
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0699-tundra-ablaze-as-reindeer-carcasses-infected-with-deadly-anthrax-are-incinerated/
.
“As a social and human division”
:
Hacker,
Two Nations,
p. 4.
“To other countries, I may go”
:
Martin Luther King, Jr., “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi” (1959),
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/my-trip-land-gandhi
.
“The separation of children”
:
C. Edwards Lester,
Life and Public Services of Charles Sumner
(New York, 1874), pp. 74, 81.
“to maintain the color line has”
:
Myrdal,
American Dilemma,
p. 2:677.
“When we speak of the race”
:
Montagu,
Most Dangerous Myth,
p. 180.
“A record of the desperate efforts”
:
Madison Grant,
The Passing of the Great Race
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916), p. 64.
“The mill worker with nobody else”
:
Pope,
Millhands,
p. 94.
“Let the lowest white man count”
:
This creed, known as “Race Hierarchy in the South,” was first published in
Neale’s Monthly Magazine
in November 1913 and was included in Bailey,
Race Orthodoxy in the South,
p. 112.
“that my countrymen may take”
:
Jotiba (also known as Jotirao) Phule was an anti-caste reformer in nineteenth-century India who dedicated his 1873 book,
Gulumgiri
(
Slavery
), to the people of the United States who had ended slavery as a result of the Civil War. Cited by Kalpana Kannabirin in
Non-Discrimination and the Indian Constitution
(New Delhi: Routledge, 2012), p. 151.
“There is so much similarity”
:
B. R. Ambedkar to W.E.B. Du Bois, ca. July 1946, in W.E.B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
“every sympathy with”
:
W.E.B. Du Bois to B. R. Ambedkar, July 31, 1946, ibid.
“Why did God make me”
:
Du Bois,
Souls of Black Folk,
p. 3.
“caste system, which divided”
:
Stampp,
Peculiar Institution,
pp. 330–31.
“The prejudice of race appears”
:
Tocqueville,
Democracy in America,
p. 141.
The great quest in the film series
:
Wachowski, Lilly and Lana, writers and directors (originally as The Wachowski Brothers).
The Matrix Reloaded.
Warner Brothers Studio, 2003.
T
HE
A
RBITRARY
C
ONSTRUCTION OF
H
UMAN
D
IVISIONS
Chapter Four: A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America
“held at the outset’’
:
Vaughan,
Roots of American Racism,
p. 129.
“a civilized and relatively docile”
:
Smedley and Smedley,
Race in North America,
p. 112.
“The colonists soon realized”
:
Ibid., p. 113.
“The Gaelic insurrections”
:
Ibid., p. 112.
“the beautiful avenue in front”
:
Weld,
American Slavery,
p. 76.
“When they [the slaveholders] permit”
:
Ibid., pp. 76, 77.
“submission is required of”
:
George McDowell Stroud,
A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America
(Philadelphia, 1856), p. 154; Weld,
American Slavery,
p. 283.
“an otherwise perfect cloth”
:
Steinberg,
Ethnic Myth,
p. 300.
“an extreme form of slavery”
:
Gross,
What Blood Won’t Tell,
pp. 22, 23.
“The slave is doomed to toil”
:
Goodell,
American Slave Code,
p. 64.
“The slave is entirely subject”
:
Ibid., pp. 72, 63, 12.
in 1740, South Carolina, like other
:
Stampp,
Peculiar Institution,
p. 218.
“They were scarcely permitted”
:
Goodell,
American Slave Code,
p. 125.
“Your slaves, I believe, work”
:
Ibid., p. 116.
“Whipping was a gateway form”
:
Baptist,
The Half Has Never Been Told,
pp. 120, 139–141, 185.
“This fact is of great significance”
:
Guy B. Johnson, “Patterns of Race Conflict,” in Thompson,
Race Relations,
p. 130.
“In the gentlest houses drifted”
:
Cash,
Mind of the South
, pp. 82–83.
“For the horrors of”
:
Baldwin,
Fire Next Time,
p. 69.
the year 2022 marks the first year
:
Enslavement lasted from 1619 to 1865 or for 246 years. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The year 2022 is 246 years from 1776. The Thirteenth Amendment freed African-Americans from enslavement in 1865. The year 2111 is 246 years from the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment that freed African-Americans from enslavement.
the deaths of three-quarters
:
Guy Gugliotta,“New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll,”
New York Times,
April 3, 2012,
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html
.
“In Ireland or Italy”
:
López,
White by Law,
p. 84.
“No one was white before”
:
James Baldwin, “On Being ‘White’ and Other Lies,”
Essence,
April 1984, p. 90.
“The European immigrants’ experience”
:
Jacobson,
Whiteness,
p. 8.
the Draft Riots of 1863
:
Foner,
Reconstruction,
pp. 32–33.
“It was not just that’’
:
Jacobson,
Whiteness,
p. 9.
“Caste in the South”
:
W. Lloyd Warner and Allison Davis, “A Comparative Study of American Caste,” in Thompson,
Race Relations,
p. 245.
